I have been in dialogue with my family about what can actually be done. We've come up with this philosophy that in a truly multicultural society, the only way to have liberty and justice for everybody is to have multiple parties. And by multiple parties, I mean 50 parties, not one or two.

When you live in the South, you're constantly part of the civil rights movement.

From now back to the past, we can observe clearly that none of us is free.

I started composing when I was around 13, and back then, people used to say that I needed to be a composer or a performer, but I can't be good at both of them. I could never understand why anyone would say that. Jellyroll did both, Bessie Smith did both, and so did I.

Late night is no different than making a film, really, except that it's faster, and if you do a crap one, you can do a better one tomorrow. Writing a novel and doing stand-up - that stuff is very similar.

I didn't have the equipment for the regular world of being a lawyer. I didn't have the imagination for that. I did have a funny kind of ambition, but I didn't know where to put it.

After graduation, I moved to Los Angeles to do more theater, not realizing there is very little theater in L.A. It was a lucky mistake, though, because after just 2 1/2 months of waiting tables, my TV and film career really took off.

Without no disrespect to any artist, there's a lot of degrading music out there as far as degrading the culture and degrading society as well. That's individuals that choose to make that kind of music.